Each semester, I teach a course called “Eastern Christianity and the Encounter with Islam.” And next year I have a book with a similar title, Eastern Christian Encounters with Islam, being published by Routledge. One […]
The great Southern writer and Catholic Flannery O’Connor once said that Catholics are called upon to suffer ever so much more from the Church than for her. These words came back to mind after the […]
With the pope of Rome and the patriarch of Constantinople going to Jerusalem this weekend, there is naturally a great deal of conversation and consideration of where Orthodox and Catholic Christians have been and where […]
Regardless of what one thinks of Saints John XXIII and John Paul II, and prescinding from comment on certain aspects of their legacy as papal administrators, there is one outstanding feature of both popes that […]
As I’ve been making dinner this week, I’ve been listening to an NPR investigative series into televangelists and their millions, almost none of which, it turns out, are scrutinized by the IRS or anybody else […]
I confess that I really don’t want to talk about sex abuse in the Church again. But Pope Francis does, so perhaps we might help him and his newly appointed commission by taking a trip […]
The recent news out of Constantinople that the Orthodox Church has finally set a date (2016) for the holding of its much-promised but much-delayed “great and holy synod” is good news indeed. If it comes […]
Lent, or the Great Fast, is now upon us, and this year both Eastern and Western Christians will celebrate the Lord’s Passover from death to life on the same Sunday: April 20. And this raises […]
One year ago, when Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world by announcing his retirement, a scholarly friend said to me that the papacy of Benedict XVI was a “failed papacy” in that it left too […]
Every January for over a century now, Christians have set aside a special week to pray for unity. This week, my friend the Orthodox priest and historian Oliver Herbel posted an excellent reflection in which […]
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